Kissin' Cousins (album)

Kissin' Cousins
Soundtrack album by Elvis Presley
Released April 2, 1964
Recorded May–September 1963
Genre Soundtrack
Length 26:15
Label RCA
Producer Gene Nelson
Fred Karger
Elvis Presley chronology
Fun in Acapulco
(1963)		 Kissin' Cousins (1964) Roustabout
(1964)
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic [1]

Kissin' Cousins is the twentieth album by Elvis Presley, released on RCA Victor Records in mono and stereo, LPM/LSP 2894, in April 1964. Recording sessions took place at RCA Studio B in Nashville, Tennessee, on May 26 and 27, and September 29 and 30, 1963. These would be Presley's final recording dates before the arrival of Beatlemania. It peaked at #6 on the Billboard Top Pop Albums chart. During the same week of its release, 4 April 1964, The Beatles held twelve positions on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, including the top five positions. It was evident that Elvis' musical output had become stale and stagnant and directionless and the emphasis of his career was firmly committed to making musical comedy motion pictures. With the astronomical success of The Fab Four, Elvis had become, in slightly less than a decade, an icon of the past.

Contents

Content

Since the sessions for Viva Las Vegas had gone way over budget, released after but completed before Kissin' Cousins, Colonel Parker determined for fiscal prudence to have the songs recorded at Studio B, away from Hollywood and its distractions, and its platoon of available on-call musicians.[2] Demand for songs to fill long-playing soundtrack albums, by now a regularity as the EP single was becoming less and less a viable sales item, strained the resources of the stable of Presley songwriters, with five songs alone originating from the team of Giant, Baum and Kaye.[3]

Ten soundtrack songs were knocked off by Presley with members of the Nashville A-Team during two evening sessions in September, with two distinct versions by different songwriters of the title track, one recorded in Presley's normal voice and the other with a mock-hillbilly twang.[4] The latter version of "Kissin' Cousins" would be issued as a single in February 1964, with "It Hurts Me" on the b-side. It would peak at #12 on the Billboard Hot 100, its flipside making it independently to #29.[5]

As had happened with the previous soundtrack, two additional tracks, "Echoes of Love" and "(It's A) Long Lonely Highway" by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman were taken from the aborted "lost" album sessions of May, 1963, and added here to bring the running order up to twelve tracks. Three selections — "Once Is Enough," "One Boy, Two Little Girls," and the single — found their way onto the 1995 soundtrack compilation.

Personnel

Track listing

Side one

Track Recorded Song Title Writer(s) Time
1. 9/29/63 Kissin' Cousins (Number 2) Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 1:16
2. 9/30/63 Smokey Mountain Boy Lenore Rosenblatt, Victor Millrose 2:37
3. 9/29/63 There's Gold in the Mountains Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 1:54
4. 9/29/63 One Boy, Two Little Girls Bill Giant, Bernie Baum, Florence Kaye 2:32
5. 9/30/63 Catchin' On Fast Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 1:21
6. 9/29/63 Tender Feeling Bernie Baum, Bill Giant, Florence Kaye 2:33

Side two

Track Recorded Catalogue Release Date Chart Peak Song Title Writer(s) Time
1. 9/30/63 Anyone (Could Fall in Love with You) Bennie Benjamin, Luchi de Jesus, Sol Marcus 2:29
2. 9/30/63 Barefoot Ballad Dolores Fuller, Larry Morris 2:26
3. 9/29/63 Once Is Enough Sid Tepper and Roy C. Bennett 1:55
4. 9/30/63 47-8307 2/10/64 #12 Kissin' Cousins Fred Wise and Randy Starr 2:14
5. 5/26/63 Echoes of Love Bob Roberts and Paddy McMains 2:20
6. 5/27/63 (It's a) Long Lonely Highway Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman 2:38

References

  1. ^ Allmusic review
  2. ^ Jorgensen, Ernst. Elvis Presley A Life in Music: The Complete Recording Sessions. New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998; p. 186
  3. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 186, 199.
  4. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., pp. 185-186.
  5. ^ Jorgensen, op. cit., p. 415.